


(Heaven Help) The Ones Who Fly Away

by heykaylabeth



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heykaylabeth/pseuds/heykaylabeth
Summary: By the time they save the world, Erin knows the following things about Holtzmann:1. She was home-schooled (but she doesn’t know for how long.)2. She has siblings (but she doesn’t know how many.)3. She’s originally from “oh, you know, one of those Delaware-Arkansas-Wyoming-type places.” (That had been her answer when Erin had asked. Erin followed with another question: “Actually one of those places, or just a place like that?” To which Holtz nodded and said “exactly!”)And that’s about it. It isn’t much at all.





	1. Chapter One.

By the time they save the world from the ghost apocalypse, Erin still only knows a handful of things about Holtzmann’s life. And it’s kind of unfair because Erin has shared plenty, and Holtz…. Every so often, she’ll offer a tidbit of her own life-before-ghostbusting, but it’s rare, and it usually leads to even more questions. Questions that Erin doesn’t know how to get answers to.

 

By the time they save the world, Erin knows the following things about Holtzmann:

 

  1. She was home-schooled (but she doesn’t know for how long.)
  2. She has siblings (but she doesn’t know how many.)
  3. She’s originally from “oh, you know, one of those Delaware-Arkansas-Wyoming-type places.” (That had been her answer when Erin had asked. Erin followed with another question: “ _Actually_ one of those places, or just a place _like_ that?” To which Holtz nodded and said “ _exactly!”_ )



 

And that’s about it. It isn’t much at all.

 

And then they save the damn world. They save the world and they’re at a bar and they’re on television, and Erin is wondering out loud what her parents will think if/when they see it, and she’s waiting with Holtzmann to get their next round of drinks and carry them back to the table, and then she asks Holtz if  _ her  _ parents will see it.

 

“Oh, no,” she laughs. “They don’t have television where  _ they’re  _ at.”

 

It’s vague, and it would be such a twisted way to say that her parents are dead, but it  _ is  _ Holtzmann, and Erin isn’t entirely sure that that  _ isn’t  _ what she means. And her toast, her toast about having a family….

 

“But you, uh...do you have parents?”

 

She’s had a few drinks. She’s a little more forward than usual.

 

“That’s how biology works,” Holtz replies with a wink. Erin rolls her eyes.

 

“That’s not what I mean. Obviously, biologically, yeah, I know you have parents. I mean, like…”

 

“Live ones?” Holtz suggests. 

 

“Yeah. Are your parents alive?” 

 

“Last time I checked,” she says, and she turns away from Erin, looking down the bar, probably at the progress of their drink order.

 

“You don’t ever talk about them.”

 

“Don’t have much to say,” she shrugs.

 

“You have siblings too, right?” Erin asks. “You mentioned that once.”

 

“Yep,” she nods, turning to face her again.

 

“How many?”

 

“You feel like getting all personal tonight?” she laughs. Erin shrugs.

 

“I just feel like I don’t know that much about you,” she explains. “I want to know more.”

 

“Oh,  _ do  _ you?” she grins.

 

They end up sleeping together. That night. And Erin does learn more about her. Like, the amount of scars all over her body. And how skilled she is with her hands, even outside of her inventions. And exactly what her skin tastes like. 

 

They could blame it on being intoxicated, but truthfully, it had been coming for a while. They both knew it. It’s no surprise to anybody.

 

And then they end up dating. Really, actually dating. Girlfriend-and-girlfriend. And it’s good. 

 

They’re together for nearly a year and Erin has learned more about Holtzmann -- the way she does her hair every morning, the exact way she takes her coffee, how her feet are somehow  _ always  _ cold, how she’ll always  _ start  _ to do the dishes, but stop after a few plates, how she never replaces the roll of toilet paper, how she always squeezes the tube of toothpaste from the bottom and works her way up, how whenever Erin can  _ finally  _ get her to sit still long enough to watch a movie with her, she will always,  _ always  _ fall asleep about an hour in, her head resting on Erin’s shoulder….

 

She knows things about her. She knows her. Sometimes she feels like she knows everything that she can know. Until she says something that reminds her how much she  _ doesn’t  _ know.

 

It doesn’t happen often. And when it does, it’s something subtle. Like the day Holtzmann casually mentions something about her oldest brother. Or when she’s shoving pizza into her mouth and Patty shoots her a disgusted look and she simply shrugs, says that she wasn’t allowed to have pizza for the first eighteen years of her life and that she’s  _ still  _ making up for all that lost time. Or the absolute silence when parents are ever brought into conversation.

 

“How many siblings do you have?” Erin asks her one morning. It’s out of the blue. Holtz stares at her, eyes narrowed, lips parted.

 

“Um,” she says. “A lot.”

 

“How many is a lot?”

 

She shrugs.

 

“Guess.”

 

“Five?”

 

“Nope,” she shakes her head.

 

“Four?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“...Six?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Is it more or is it less?” she asks, but Holtz just shrugs. Erin sighs. She doesn’t care for guessing games. “Ten?”

 

“Oh, hey, wow, yeah, you got it.”

 

“Wait, really?” she asks, somewhat taken aback. She was sure that wouldn’t be right. But Holtz nods.

 

“Yeah. Ten.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“You have… you have  _ ten  _ siblings?!”

 

“You see, this is why I don’t flaunt it!”

 

“Ten…. Wow. Really? Ten?”

 

“Really. Ten,” she nods. “Six brothers. Four sisters.”

 

“That’s…,” she begins.

 

“A lot,” Holtz fills in for her, nodding.

 

“So there was  _ eleven  _ of you?!”

 

“Ten siblings plus me equals eleven!”

 

“Wow,” she says. “How...how in the world did your parents handle that?”

 

Holtz just laughs and shrugs. 

 

“Why don’t you ever talk about them? Your brothers and sisters?”

 

“I talk about them sometimes,” Holtz says.

 

“Holtz, we’ve been together for how long? And I don’t know anything about them. Or anything about your parents or where you’re from at all,” she says, and she’s frowning. She doesn’t mean to turn this  _ into something _ , but it bothers her. It bothers her. 

 

“It’s not a big deal,” she tells her.

 

“What are their names? Your brothers and sisters?”

 

“Erin,” Holtz says, and she looks at her, and she doesn’t look upset -- she very rarely looks upset -- and even though she’s smiling, there’s a tone in her voice and a look in her eyes that clearly says that she doesn’t want to continue to conversation. It’s a dismissal. Erin drops it.

 

At first, it’s difficult for Erin to not think about the conversation, to not think about Holtz’s ten brothers and sisters, because she still has so many questions about it -- are they all biological siblings? Half-siblings? Step-siblings? Foster-siblings, perhaps? And her parents… what about her parents? Erin has been dating Holtz for nearly a year and she’s never mentioned speaking to her parents or any of her siblings. And she has them. She has parents and she has siblings, but it’s becoming apparent to Erin that she doesn’t speak to them for some reason, and god, she wants to know. She wants to know but she doesn’t want to push, because the casual dismissal of the conversation was one thing, and it was enough to tell Erin that they had gone far enough in the discussion, and she doesn’t want to push, but she wants to  _ know. _

 

Of course, over time, after the subject isn’t brought up for a few months, she starts to forget about it once again.

 

It’s when they’re at the firehouse, a rare moment when Holtz is downstairs with the rest of them, and Abby is on her laptop and she sighs heavily.

 

“I hate when this happens,” she grumbles. They all look at her, awaiting an explanation. She continues. “When people in other states email us, asking for help, but can’t actually pay for us to get there.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” they all nod in agreement. Their government funding covers all of their needs and everything for them to do their job in New York, but it doesn’t cover out-of-state busts. They’ve done it before. Gone somewhere else to get rid of ghosts, but it’s only when their travel expenses are paid for. It’s the only way that they can feasibly do it.

 

“Where’s it at this time?” Patty asks, and Abby glances at the screen of her laptop.

 

“Ohio,” she says. Erin notices Holtz stand up a little bit straighter beside her.

 

“Where in Ohio?” she asks.

 

“Danville? I’ve never heard of it. Not that I know Ohio all that well…,” she says, and then she sighs, still looking at her computer. “It doesn’t even sound like a hard job. I hate saying no, but it’s just so  _ far.” _

 

The shift in Holtz’s body language is subtle and would hardly be noticeable by anybody else, and Erin thinks that she probably wouldn’t notice it at all if she didn’t know her as well as she does. But it changes. She stiffens, stares straight forward, and Erin glances at her, sees a frown cross her face.

 

“I’ll go,” Holtz says suddenly, and she nods, quick, jerking nods. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll go.”

 

“What?” Abby asks, and they are all staring at her, and Erin is trying to read her, but she can’t.

 

“I’ll go to Danville, Ohio,” she explains simply. “Take care of their ghost situation. Yeah.”

 

And she turns away, quickly walking towards the stairs, and Patty and Abby are both calling out in confusion, but Erin just watches the way she runs up the stairs, and then she feels two sets of eyes on her. She looks at them.

 

“Uh. What’s up with that?” Abby asks.

 

“How should I know?”

 

“She’s your girlfriend. You understand her better than we do at this point,” Patty says.

 

“I…,” she mumbles, and glances back at the empty staircase. She sighs. “I’ll go see… what’s… going on.”

 

She climbs the stairs slowly. She’s expecting to find Holtz in her lab, working on equipment, something like that -- that’s usually the first place she goes when she runs up the stairs like that. But she’s not. When Erin finds her sitting by a window, curled up into herself, she’s even more confused than before.

 

“Um. Babe?” she asks tentatively. “Is… are… um. Everything okay?”

 

“Dandy,” she nods, not looking at her, her voice almost monotone.

 

“Um. Why… uh. What makes you want to go to Ohio?”

 

“Ghosts. Gotta help people, right?”

 

“Well, yes, but… Ohio is… I don’t think they can pay for travel, and that’s…”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“It is?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Holtz, what’s going on?” she finally asks, because this isn’t normal behaviour, not even from Holtz, possibly the least normal person that Erin knows.

 

“Nothing,” Holtz shakes her head, and she still isn’t even looking at Erin.

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

She’s silent for several seconds, and then she turns, looks at Erin, and sighs heavily, a bit over-dramatic, and she smiles a lopsided smile, rolls her eyes, shakes her head. She’s trying to pretend that this isn’t important. Erin knows this move.

 

“Danville, Ohio is…,” she begins, and she shrugs, hesitates, and then mumbles out the rest. “Close to where I grew up.”

 

Erin raises her eyebrows.

 

“Ohio?” she asks. “You’re from Ohio?”

 

Holtz nods.

 

“That’s… that isn’t Arkansas, Delaware,  _ or  _ Wyoming.”

 

Holtz shakes her head, lets out a soft laugh.

 

“No. It isn’t.”

 

“I don’t think Ohio is really  _ like  _ those states, either.”

 

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to them.”

 

“Why not just say you’re from Ohio?” she asks with a laugh.

 

“Because, Erin, I like to be  _ mysterious. _ ”

 

“Okay,” she laughs. “So, um. You… want to go to Ohio to… to go home?”

 

She shrugs, turns away, looks out the window again.

 

“Might be nice.”

 

Erin is silent for a few moments and she stands there, watching her girlfriend, trying to fit a few pieces of a large puzzle together. It’s too disconnected for her to understand anything at all. 

 

“Okay,” she finally says. “We’ll go to Ohio, then.”

 

“We?” Holtz asks, looking at her. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, you don’t… you shouldn’t… no need to, um, it’s. I should go by myself.”

 

“Holtz, listen…. If you want to see your family and not have me there, that is totally okay. I...that’s fine. I won’t be offended. I can be elsewhere. But I am not letting you try to take down ghosts by yourself. How many times have we gone to a bust, expecting something small and easy, and have it turn into something big and...not easy? Okay, that’s too dangerous and you’re going to need backup, whether you like it or not.”

 

She doesn’t say anything for a while. But then she stands, stares straight at Erin, and begins to walk towards her. Erin lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t move, and then Holtzmann is right in front of her, and she’s wrapping her arms around her waist, hooking her chin over her shoulder, hugging her tightly. Erin is taken aback at first, doesn’t immediately respond because she isn’t sure exactly why she’s being hugged, but then she simply accepts it and wraps her arms around Holtz, returning the hug. 

 

“So, when should we go?” Erin asks softly. 

 

“Probably soon, right? I mean… the ghosts and...stuff…”

 

“Right. Yeah. The ghosts and stuff.”

 

They send an email to the man in Danville, Ohio, telling him that two Ghostbusters will be headed his way shortly to take care of his ghost problem. Two days later, they have one of their two cars (thanks, government funding!) packed up and ready to head towards Danville. Abby and Patty are still confused as to why Holtz and Erin are going to Ohio, of all places, for a (class two or three, at the very most) ghost bust, when they’ll be  _ losing  _ money along the way. But Patty easily gives up on asking questions, accepting that there are certain things regarding Holtzmann that she’ll never quite understand. Abby, however, continues to voice her confusion until Erin finally shoots her a look, tells her to drop it, and she does. Because Holtz doesn’t want to tell them that Ohio is where she grew up. She doesn’t want to tell them that she’s going to see her family. And Erin doesn’t really understand it, but she respects it.

 

They leave early on a Wednesday morning. It’s a nine hour drive and they have a reservation at an inn in Danville for that evening. Holtz drives. She keeps one hand on the wheel, one hand resting atop Erin’s knee. They have an abundance of snack food, a long “road trip playlist” arranged by Holtz, and each other. Erin falls asleep a couple hours into the drive. She wakes up when the car is stopped, at a gas station somewhere in...she doesn’t know. She checks her watch, finds that they’ve been on the road for four hours. 

 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Holtz grins and she climbs back into the car.

 

“Hi,” she smiles. “Want me to drive for a bit?”

 

“Nah, I’m good. I like driving. Keeps me focused on...driving.”

 

“Right,” she laughs.

 

They continue on. The road trip playlist plays through three times before Erin tries to find something better on the radio. She doesn’t succeed. She turns off the music entirely. She rests her feet on the dashboard, stretching out as much as she can in the car.

 

“How much further?” she asks.

 

“A few hours.”

 

“Cool,” she nods. “So, uh…. Are you… excited to see your family?”

 

Holtz doesn’t answer right away. Erin looks at her, watches the way she frowns slightly before biting down on her bottom lip and then releasing it.

 

“Excited…,” she repeats. “Might not be the word I’d be most likely to use.”

 

“What word would you be most likely to use?” she asks.

 

“I’m...not sure,” she mumbles in an uncharacteristically soft voice. Erin continues to watch her. She stays focused on the road in front of her.

 

“When was the last time you saw them?”

 

“It’s been a while,” she answers. She shifts in her seat, tightens her grip on the steering wheel. Erin doesn’t ask any more questions. 

 

The sun is beginning to set by the time they get to Danville. There are a lot of trees and winding roads, the town giving off a real ‘middle-of-nowhere’ vibe. Erin isn’t sure  _ just  _ how close they are to where Holtz grew up, but if it’s similar to this place...she’s getting a bit of an idea of why she’s so reluctant to talk about her past. She’s trying to imagine Holtz in a place like this, and it’s difficult. 

 

They arrive at the inn they’ve made reservations at, and it’s not long before they’re in their room, and Holtz groans, flopping down on the bed.

 

“Oh my god, my body. Erin,  _ my body.” _

 

“What about your body?” she laughs.

 

“It feels like I’ve been in a car for the last billion hours.”

 

“Hm, I think that’s because you have been,” she says, crawling onto the bed beside her. “I  _ did  _ offer to drive, you know.”

 

“I  _ know, _ ” she sighs heavily. “Get over here.”

 

She wraps her arm around Erin’s waist and pulls her close to her. Erin laughs and cuddles up against her girlfriend.

 

“We should eat something other than junk food,” she says, but makes no effort to move or even think about finding something to eat.

 

“Yeah, but...this is better,” Holtz says and presses a kiss to Erin’s cheek.

 

“Yeah,” she sighs. “You’re right.”

 

They end up falling asleep in all of their clothes, on top of the blankets.

 

The ghost situation is pretty standard. They take care of it easily. The man that contacted them thanks them profusely. They’re done by mid-afternoon.

 

“What should we do with the rest of the day?” Erin asks when they’re returning to the inn lobby. She pauses in front of a display of brochures for various attractions in the area -- wineries, antique and flea markets, walking trails -- but Holtz grabs her by the elbow and steers her towards the direction of their room.

 

“I have a few ideas,” she grins.

 

“Holtz! We’re in a new place! We should explore! Take in the  _ culture _ !”

 

“Erin, we’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing interesting to do. I promise. The most fun we’ll have is in the very nice bed that we’ve rented for the next two nights.”

 

“But!” she argues, and looks back towards the front door of the inn. “Look at how pretty it is outside. There’s a gazebo!”

 

“You wanna do it in the gazebo?”

 

“Oh my god, no, that’s not-- no.”

 

“That might be fun.”

 

“Come  _ on,”  _ she sighs, pulling her towards their room.

 

Erin wakes up the next morning to the smell of food, a finger lightly tapping the tip of her nose, and Holtz’s voice, repeating her name over and over again.

 

She groans, swats Holtz’s hand away from her face, and opens her eyes to find blue ones staring back at her.

 

“What?” she asks. Holtz smiles at her.

 

“I got breakfast,” she smiles brightly. “Do you know how long it took me to find a McDonald’s around here? I had to get back on the highway! There may have been one closer, I don’t really know. I kind of just drove in one direction until I found one.”

 

“Why did you…?” Erin begins. “The inn serves breakfast.”

 

“I was just feeling McDonald’s,” she explains, standing up from the bed.

 

Erin looks at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s only seven in the morning.

 

“How long have you been awake?” she asks.

 

“Oh, I didn’t sleep,” she laughs.

 

“You didn’t sleep?”

 

“Nope! So you might have to do some of the driving later. I figure we head back to New York after we eat, yeah?”

 

“Um,” Erin mumbles, running her hands over her face and slowly sitting up. “I’m sorry, what?”

 

“You might have to drive a little bit,” Holtz says again. “Because I forgot to sleep.”

 

“No, not that part. Did you say we’re heading back to New York… this morning?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods, turning away and grabbing a McDonald’s bag from a chair, tossing it onto the bed and sitting back down. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had McDonald’s breakfast? It’s been forever!”

 

“Holtz,” Erin says, staring straight at her.

 

“What?” she asks.

 

“You’re supposed to visit your family today,” she says. “We aren’t… we’re not supposed to go back yet.”

 

“Oh! Right! About that,” she says, nodding. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not gonna go see them.”

 

Erin continues to stare at her.

 

“You’re joking, right? This is...a joke?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“We came here...so you could--”

 

“Bust some ghosts in Danville,” she interrupts. “And we did that.”

 

“No. You wanted to come here to see your family. That’s why we came. That’s why we’re here.”

 

“Okay, well, I changed my mind, okay?” Holtz says, and there’s a sudden change in her voice. It’s sharper, more direct. Serious. Erin frowns.

 

“What’s going on?” she asks her. Holtz shrugs without looking at her. She looks down, stares at a spot on the blanket.

 

“I just don’t wanna go, okay?” she mumbles. “I thought it would be a good idea at first, but now I’ve thought about it more and...I don’t wanna go.”

 

“We came all this way,” Erin reminds her gently. “This is clearly important to you since you decided to come all this way in the first place. I don’t know what’s going on, but… you obviously want to see your family. At least, there’s a part of you that does.”

 

She doesn’t say anything.

 

“Why don’t you...go to sleep? For a few hours. I’ll wake you up at ten and you can think about it again and then make a decision. How does that sound?”

 

She shrugs, still looking down.

 

“‘Kay,” she finally says.

 

“Okay. Okay, good.”

 

“Will you cuddle with me until I fall asleep?”

 

“Of course I will.”

 

So, she does. It doesn’t take long for Holtz to pass out, snoring softly, curled against Erin. Erin looks at her, smooths some of her hair from her forehead, watches her sleeping. She lays with her for nearly an hour before she disentangles herself from her sleeping girlfriend and moves to the small table off to the side. She has brochures from the lobby and she sits, picks one up for a “wine and cheese trail” and looks through it. Holtz is supposed to visit her family, and Erin had planned to stay behind, and if they stick to the plan, then Erin would like to find something interesting to do for the day. 

 

She’s seriously considering taking a tour of an ice cream factory (although, she knows that Holtz would love that and she would feel guilty going without her) when she hears the rustling of blankets beside her. She glances over to see Holtz sitting up, her hair a mess, looking at Erin through bleary eyes. She looks at the clock. It’s fifteen minutes until ten.

 

“Hey,” she says, setting down the brochure in her hands. Holtz blinks at her a few times.

 

“Will you come with me?”

 

“Hm?” Erin asks.

 

“To my family. I want you to come with me.”

 

“I thought you didn’t want…?”

 

“I know. But. You were right. I want...I want to see them. But I need you to be there.”

 

“Okay,” she agrees easily. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll come with you.”

 

“Okay,” she nods. And then she falls back down onto the pillows and rolls over and begins to snore again.

 

She lets her sleep a half-hour longer than she said she would. She crawls beside her, drops kisses onto her cheek, nudges her gently.

 

“Time to wake up, babe,” she whispers. 

 

“Oh no,” she mumbles.

 

“What?”

 

“The McDonald’s got cold.”

 

Erin laughs.

 

“Yeah. It did.”

 

“I’ll still eat it.”

 

Holtz doesn’t say much after that. She’s quiet. Weirdly quiet. Erin doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t know what’s going on in Holtz’s head, doesn’t want to push her. So she allows her to be quiet as they get ready to leave the inn for the day. 

 

Holtz sits down on the bed, stares at the wall, says nothing. Erin sits beside her, laces their fingers together. Holtz rests her head on Erin’s shoulder. They stay like that, silent, for several minutes. Finally, Holtz speaks. 

 

“I’m ready,” she says.

 

“Okay.”

 

They go to the car. Holtz drives and she seems to know where she’s going even without navigation. She drives in silence, her hands tight on the steering wheel, and the further they go, the more she begins to fidget. She lets go of the wheel, taps her fingers against it, the leg that isn’t pressing the gas bounces up and down. Her breathing grows heavier. Erin watches her.

 

“Are you okay?” she finally asks, because she honestly isn’t sure.

 

Holtz laughs. It’s loud and shaky and not at all genuine. 

 

“Holtz?”

 

She continues to laugh. And then she stops.

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“Holtz?”

 

“Erin, um…,” she says. “I need, um. I need to….”

 

“You need to what?”

 

“Okay. Um. Okay.”

 

Erin is beginning to grow nervous. And then very suddenly, the car is swerving, quickly pulling into a gas station, and she parks. And then she sits there, breathing heavily, staring ahead, but not speaking.

 

“Holtz, please tell me what’s going on.”

 

“I have to tell you something,” she finally says.

 

“Okay?”

 

“And um,” she laughs nervously. “You know like, okay, you know how like, sometimes you have a thing that you should tell someone and it’s kind of weird but if you tell them early on, it’s out of the way? And then, great, okay, it’s done…. But um, um, the longer you wait, the weirder it becomes, and then it’s just like...how? How do you ever actually tell them because you’ve waited so long and? That’s...what’s happened here. There’s something that I need to tell you and I probably should have told you a long time ago, but I didn’t and now I have no idea how to tell you, but you’re going to find out anyways, so...I need to tell you.”

 

“Okay, I’m not gonna lie, you’re kind of scaring me.”

 

“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

 

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. Tell me now. Whatever it is...it’s fine. You can tell me.”

 

“It’s about my family.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Um,” she pauses, swallows hard. “I haven’t seen anyone in my family for over ten years. Um. Twelve, maybe? Or...or, thirteen?”

 

“Thirteen years?” she repeats. “You haven’t seen your family in thirteen years?”

 

“I haven’t talked to them. Haven’t had any contact with them at all.”

 

“ _ Why?” _

 

“Because….,” she begins. “Um.”

 

She’s breathing so heavily that Erin thinks that she might be near hyperventilating. She wants to do something, but she doesn’t know what.

 

“Oh my god. This is a mistake. We should just turn around and go back to New York. That’s what we should do.”

 

“Holtz,  _ no _ ,” Erin insists. “You’re scared. Okay. That’s fine. But...thirteen years… why… what happened, Holtz?”

 

“I left.”

 

“You left?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods. “I left.”

 

“You left home?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And never went back?”

 

“I went back once. To see them. And never again after that.”

 

“And you haven’t talked at all?”

 

“No,” she shakes her head. “No way to.”

 

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, opens her eyes again, and then very suddenly turns, reaching into the backseat of the car, grabbing a small bag that Erin hadn’t even noticed, and then she’s unbuckling her seat belt, opening the car door.

 

“Where are you going?!” Erin calls out after her.

 

“I have to change,” she says.

 

“What?!”

 

“I have to change my clothes. If I’m doing this, I have to change my clothes.”

 

“I don’t understand--” she begins, but Holtz is already out of the car, walking quickly towards the gas station. Erin follows. She isn’t sure what’s wrong with the clothes that Holtz has on now -- they’re actually fairly toned down, compared to usual. She thinks she looks perfectly fine. She walks into the gas station just in time to see Holtz disappearing into a restroom, and she sighs, looks around. She doesn’t really know what to do while she waits for her. The gas station is nearly empty, with just one man behind the front counter and an older lady strolling through the aisles. 

 

Erin stands near the restroom, absentmindedly picks up packages of candy, looks at them, and then sets them back down. She’s holding a bag of Sour Patch Kids when she hears the restroom door open, and she turns.

 

She doesn’t mean for her mouth to fall open. She doesn’t mean to drop the candy package onto the floor. She doesn’t mean for the audible gasp to pass her lips.

 

“I haven’t worn this since I was eighteen,” Holtz mumbles from where she stands. “Kind of surprised it still fits. It smells a little funny, but I guess that’s okay.”

 

Erin stares. She can’t help it. She doesn’t mean to stare, but she does. She stares as Holtz runs her hands over the navy blue fabric of the long-sleeved dress that falls down to her ankles. The white bonnet sits atop her head, blonde hair pulled back into it. 

 

There are a lot of things running through Erin’s head as she stares, processing the sight in front of her, connecting the dots, and finally, she speaks.

 

“You’re  _ Amish _ .”

 

Holtz stands there in front of her, wringing her hands together and looking at the floor.

 

She nods.  


 

"Yep."


	2. Chapter Two.

There are certain things that Erin prides herself on. Her impeccable memory, for one. She remembers small details and exact situations. Even things that seem insignificant at the time. Like the time she walked near Central Park with Holtzmann, right near a bunch of horses and carriages, and Holtz had gone right up to one of the horses, stroked its nose, told it that she was sorry that this was its life, and Erin had grabbed her, told her not to do that, and Holtz had scoffed, said that she’d spent her fair share of time with horses and that Manhattan was  _ not  _ a suitable place for them. Erin didn’t think much of it when it happened.

 

Or the time Erin had gotten a large tear in one of her jumpsuits and Holtz had taken it, saying that she could mend it in a flash, and she had, perfectly stitching up the hole and also embroidering a tiny heart to the inside of her sleeve. Erin had only vaguely wondered where and when she had learned to embroider, but didn’t actually ask.

 

Or the time that Holtz had been wearing something exceptionally eccentric one day, and Patty had made a comment about it, and Holtz had simply laughed, explaining that she wore things like that “because I  _ can”  _ and it didn’t mean anything at the time, it was just a normal remark, but in the context that Erin has now….

 

“Erin?”

 

She prides herself on her memory. She doesn’t, however, pride herself in her ability to know what to do or how to respond to finding out that her girlfriend of over a year is Amish.  Was  Amish. Because she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to respond. She’s been standing there staring at her for...a minute? Five minutes? An hour?

 

“Erin?” Holtz repeats. “Please say something.”

 

But she doesn’t know what to say. Holtz reaches towards her and grabs her hand and begins to pull her towards the exit. Erin allows herself to be pulled, but then stops, looks back to where she was just standing.

 

“I dropped that bag of candy on the floor,” she says. “Shouldn’t...just leave it there.”

 

“It’s fine,” Holtz says, and then continues to pull her until they’re outside again and standing beside the car. She drops her hand and Erin lets it fall to her side as she stares down at the ground, notices that Holtz is still wearing the same clunky, lace-up boots that she had been wearing before. They look strange underneath her long skirt. 

 

“Erin.”

 

“You’re Amish.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’re...you’re Amish.”

 

“I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner,” she says. “I don’t really know how to talk about it. I don’t talk about it. It’s...I don’t know how to talk about it.”

 

“Have you-- I mean… does… does anybody else know?” she asks, looking at her, and the sight of her with her hair swept out of her face, the bonnet...it’s  _ different _ and she still doesn’t know how to process it and she’s trying not to freak out about the whole thing but it’s so much to take in all at once so suddenly and she just does not know what to do.

 

“Only one other person,” Holtz answers her. “Dr. Gorin is the only other person I’ve ever told. She’s the only other person who knows. I’ve never told anybody else.”

 

“Are you...are you shunned?” Erin asks. She only has a basic knowledge of Amish culture, but that’s one of the few things that she knows. Holtz nods slowly.

 

“Yeah,” she says.

 

“Because you left?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Oh.”

 

She’s remembering when they stopped the ghost apocalypse, when they celebrated, when Holtz made her toast, talked about finally having a family of her own, and Erin didn’t fully understand at the time, but now it makes so much more sense.

 

“You left...and now you’re shunned,” Erin says, mostly to herself, trying to understand it all. “You’re Amish. And you left. And now you’re shunned.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay. Wow. That’s…”

 

“A lot. I know. I know it’s a lot. I should have told you a long time ago. I’m...I’m sorry.”

 

She sounds timid and guilty and Erin doesn’t want her to feel that way, doesn’t want to be the  _ reason  _ she feels that way, she she shakes her head, looks at her, brings her hands to her face, placing them on her cheeks.

 

“It’s okay,” she tells her. “It’s okay. I’m not… I’m just...surprised. That’s all. I’m just surprised.”

 

Holtz nods, but her mouth is pulled into a slight frown, her eyebrows furrowed together, eyes cast downwards. She looks younger than Erin has ever seen her, something about the plain clothes, the hair, the sad expression upon her face. She removes her hands from her cheeks and instead envelops her in her arms, pulling her close to her, and Holtz practically melts into her, gripping onto her tightly. 

 

They stand there like that for awhile, not saying anything, just holding each other. They stand there like that until Erin glances up, sees the man that was behind the counter inside the gas station staring at them from inside, behind a window. And his stare isn’t pleasant. Erin remembers where they are -- the middle of nowhere, next to  _ Amish country  _ \-- and she slowly pulls herself away from her girlfriend.

 

“Um,” she mumbles. “There’s a man staring at us.”

 

“Oh. Right. We’re in Ohio, aren’t we?” Holtz sighs with a frown. 

 

“Yeah. We are.”

 

Holtz looks at the car, and then back at Erin.

 

“I don’t know if I’m ready to go back,” she admits. “I...didn’t think that I would ever go back. But then when somebody from Danville, Ohio emails you and asks you to come get rid of some ghosts, it kind of feels like a  _ sign  _ or something, like, like I’m supposed to go back or something, and I don’t know if I really  _ believe  _ in  _ signs _ , but it was too much of a coincidence and, and...I miss them. I miss them. And if I see them, it’s going to be… I mean, I’m  _ shunned.  _ They’re shunning me because they have to shun me, and it’s… I’m never going to have them back. But I miss them.”

 

“Holtz,” Erin says softly.

 

“And it’s my own fault.”

 

“How?” Erin asks. “How is it your fault? For leaving? It’s your fault that you’re being shunned just for leaving?”

 

“No,” Holtz shakes her head. “It’s...it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

 

She looks at the car again.

 

“Can we go somewhere else?” she asks, and Erin nods quickly. 

 

“Yeah, of course. Of course we can,” she says. She turns towards the car, but Holtz stays still. Erin turns back to her, sees her standing there, staring at the keys in her hand, and then she looks up at Erin.

 

“Um,” she mumbles. “Can you, um...do you think you could drive? It just, um, it feels wrong to…” she gestures at herself and her outfit and then towards the car.

 

“ _ Oh.  _ Right, yeah, yeah, I can drive,” Erin nods, stepping towards her and holding out her hand and Holtz drops the keys into it. She gets into the driver’s seat while Holtz walks around to the other side, sliding into the front seat. “You’ll have to tell me where to go.”

 

Holtz nods, and Erin starts the car, backing out of the parking spot and getting back onto the road. They’re both silent. Holtz isn’t saying anything, other than the occasional ‘turn here’, and Erin isn’t sure what to say. 

 

“Pull over here,” Holtz instructs.

 

“Just...off the side of the road?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods. “It’s fine, just. Yeah. Right here.”

 

So she does. She pulls over and stops the car. She looks at Holtz who is looking down at her lap, eyes focused on her own hands.

 

“The Amish, um, they’re big on forgiveness” she begins, her voice soft and jerky, as if she’s forcing one word out of her mouth at a time. She continues. “They’re also big on choice. Even when you’re born into an Amish family and raised Amish, you don’t become part of the church until you choose to do so yourself. The idea is that by allowing you to have a choice in the matter, by not actually feeling forced, you’ll be more likely to choose that way of life. Um. So, until you’re baptised, you’re not...held to the same standards as you would be once you’re part of the church.”

 

Erin nods, listening, keeping her eyes focused on her.

 

“Usually, the youngest someone will be baptised is sixteen… but, um. There’s Rumspringa, which, um, is actually pretty inaccurately depicted in the media, um, it’s not like...a drug-fueled fuckfest or whatever. It’s just...a time when you’re no longer under the control of your parents, but you haven’t been baptised yet, so you’re also not under the limitations of the church. I mean, I don’t know, maybe it _is_ a drug-fueled fuckfest for some other people, but not… that’s not how I ever knew it. It was mostly just...that was the time you had to decide if you were going to be baptised or not.”

 

“And you decided not to be?” Erin asks softly. 

 

“I…,” she begins, and then sighs, runs her hands over her face before bringing them back down to her lap. “I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I have two older brothers. I’m the oldest daughter. My oldest brother was baptised at seventeen. My second oldest brother was baptised at sixteen. Both fairly early. It wasn’t even much of a question for them. They already just  _ knew.  _ And um… my father…” she pauses, lets out a short, nervous laugh, then continues. “My father was a minister.  _ Is  _ a minister, I guess. Yeah. So, um. Minister father, two older brothers who had no doubts and were baptised almost as soon as they could be…”

 

“Oh,” Erin breathes, understanding. Holtz nods.

 

“And, um, if you’re not baptised, then you’re not under the rules of the church, which means that if you break Amish rules, you’re technically not actually doing anything wrong because you haven’t been baptised so the rules don’t really apply to you. And, um, we’re Swartzentruber, which is, um, like, the strictest kind of Amish? And if you choose not to be baptised, then your parents will probably disapprove, and some of them  _ might  _ shun you, but it’s not...it’s not really all that common. You aren’t usually shunned for things unless you’ve been baptised.”

 

“So you...were baptised?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods.

 

“How old were you?”

 

“Seventeen,” she answers. “I  _ chose  _ to be baptised. I chose it. I chose it because...I was so afraid of the alternative. I knew that if I wasn’t baptised, then… I mean, even if I wasn’t  _ shunned _ , I would still lose my family. If you leave the Amish, even without being baptised, without being shunned, it’s still… I don’t know, maybe it isn’t so bad for the more lenient groups, but I knew that I would lose my family. And yeah, I would be able to come back and see them, but… it wouldn’t be the same, and I was afraid of that. Even though I  _ knew.  _ I knew that I didn’t want that life, but I was  _ scared.” _

 

“Of course you were,” Erin whispers. 

 

“I thought that if I could just  _ force myself  _ to be the proper Amish woman, if I pretended hard enough, then I  _ could be.  _ And I tried. I tried so hard. But then what I ended up doing was even worse. Because I  _ was  _ baptised. And  _ then  _ I left. It was stupid.  _ I  _ was stupid. I shouldn’t have ever been baptised. I knew that then, but I did it anyways. I had so many doubts, but I still did it. I had already spent most of my teenage years sneaking off to non-Amish towns and, and  _ libraries.  _ I spent  _ so  _ much time in libraries. Because, um, we stop school after eighth grade, but there was so much more that I wanted to know, and I would go to libraries. And we had libraries, Amish libraries, but I was mostly fascinated by things that I wasn’t supposed to even be around. Like electricity. And cars. It...it was very much a Little Mermaid kind of situation -- a movie that I never saw until my twenties, for obvious reasons, and then I did, and it  _ really  _ resonated with me -- you know, kind of obsessed with this other world that I wasn’t part of… And I would go to the libraries in other towns and stay there all day and just read about how things worked, and I still did that even after I was baptised, and I kept telling myself that it wasn’t wrong if I was only  _ reading  _ about it. But...I  _ knew.  _ I knew that I didn’t want to live the life of an Amish person.”

 

“When did you leave?”

 

“When I was eighteen. I didn’t tell anyone. I just...ran away. And then I was free. And...alone.”

 

Erin reaches towards her, takes her hand in her own. Holtz is still looking down at her lap, turns her head slightly to look at their hands together. Erin has no idea what to say next. She’s imagining a young Holtzmann, wearing the same dress that she’s in now, completely alone with nowhere to go. She holds her hand a little bit tighter.

 

“I went back two years later,” she continues. “After I told Dr. Gorin everything... She paid for me to come back.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“They… my family… I mean, I knew what to expect. I knew that I would be shunned and that I wasn’t exactly welcome, but I thought that maybe...I don’t know. My parents wouldn’t talk to me -- the only time they did was to ask me to come back, told me that if I just apologized and came back, then they would stop shunning me. Because, um, the whole forgiveness thing? They’re big on forgiveness. And um, that’s kind of the whole point of shunning. To get you to apologize and repent and then you’ll be forgiven and let back in. But...I didn’t want to come back. So, when I left after that time, I decided that that was it. That I was never going to go back. But...here I am! I’m back!”

 

“Will things be different this time? Will they talk to you?” Erin asks. Holtz shrugs.

 

“Dunno,” she says. “It’s been so long… I think I’m hoping that they’ll just be glad to see me. But...I don’t know. I just. I tried  _ so hard  _ for  _ so long  _ to be somebody that I wasn’t because I didn’t want to lose them and I thought that they would see that. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

 

“Um,” Erin starts, but then hesitates. She takes a breath. “Um, are you sure that...you want me to come with you?”

 

Holtz nods immediately and then turns her head to look at her.

 

“I need you.”

 

“Okay,” she agrees.

 

“I don’t know what will happen,” she admits. “I don’t know what they’ll say if...when… I don’t know...um...I didn’t… I didn’t even know that being gay was a  _ thing,  _ that it was even an  _ option... _ until after I left.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods. “It just...wasn’t mentioned. Ever. I knew that I liked girls but I never acted on it because as far as I knew, it wasn’t...it wasn’t what people did. I don’t know how...I don’t know...I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I need you there. I need you, Erin.”

 

“Okay. Okay. I’ll be there. I’ll be with you,” she assures her.

 

“Okay,” she says, and she looks out the window. “We can walk from here. We’re close.”

 

“Do we just leave the car here?”

 

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

 

“Okay. Um...are you ready?”

 

“No,” she laughs. “But if we wait until I’m ready, we’ll be sitting here forever.”

 

“Right.”

 

“Okay,” Holtz says, mostly to herself, and then again, a little bit louder. “Okay.”

 

They both step out of the car and Holtz leads the way. She seems to know exactly where she’s going without even needing to think about, as if she’d walked this exact way hundreds of times and she still remembers it clearly. Erin doesn’t doubt that that is exactly the case.

 

They turn a corner and are met by the sight of a horse and buggy, strolling along the street. 

 

“How much further are we?” Erin asks.

 

“Not too far,” Holtz answers. 

 

The buggy passes by them. Erin can feel the eyes of the Amish men inside of it looking at her, and she suddenly feels self-conscious of her jeans and sweater combination. She sticks out. 

 

She can tell that they’re getting closer to some sort of neighborhood the more that they walk. There are more horses and buggies, a few farmhouses situated upon large stretches of land, a few hand-painted, wooden signs for local businesses. 

 

“My uncle was a woodworker,” Holtz says after a length of silence. “When I was little, he’d let me help him sometimes. And then after a while, he’d let me just do whatever I wanted. First things I ever built myself were made of wood in his shop. But then when I got older, my parents wanted me to focus on uh...more household-type hobbies.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Oh, you know,” she shrugs. “Cooking, needlework, gardening….”

 

“Oh,” Erin frowns.

 

“Yeah,” Holtz laughs. “Not really my thing.”

 

They fall into silence again. The houses along the sides of the street begin to appear closer together. Another buggy passes them. In the distance, Erin can see a few women in their long dresses and bonnets. 

 

When another horse and buggy approaches their direction, Erin keeps her eyes focused ahead of her as they continue to walk. She notices the way the horse’s steps seem to slow down, but tries not to think much of it. But then it’s hard to ignore. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Holtz glance in the direction of the buggy, and then she sees her freeze. And then the buggy is stopped right beside them, and Holtz isn’t moving, and Erin looks at her, looks at the buggy, sees one man inside, a hat on his head, a beard on his chin, and he’s staring at them. No, he isn’t staring at  _ them.  _ In fact, Erin is pretty sure that he hasn’t even seen _ her _ . He’s staring at Holtz. And Holtz is staring back.

 

“Jillian?”

 

“Henry.”

 

“It  _ is  _ you.”

 

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s me.”

 

And then the man is hopping out of his buggy, taking the few steps closer to them, and standing right in front of Holtz. He’s taller than her by several inches, and Holtz peers up at him. Erin watches, still unsure as to whether or not Henry has even noticed her existence. 

 

“You’re back.”

 

“Yeah,” she nods. “I mean. Not… I’m not  _ back _ . I’m just…here."

 

"You're here," he repeats, and he's looking at her as if he can't quite believe his eyes.  


 

"Should you be speaking to me?”

 

“Probably not,” he says, and then he smiles. And Holtz smiles, too. And then he says something else, but Erin doesn’t understand it at all. Another language. She watches as Holtz nods slowly, and then she speaks, but she doesn’t understand her, either. The words sound German, but Erin isn’t entirely sure. 

 

They go back and forth a few times, speaking in this other language, and Holtz is squinting slightly from the sun, looking up at this man, and then finally he seems to realize that Holtz isn’t alone, and he glances at Erin, and then quickly back to Holtz.

 

He says something, but Erin doesn’t understand it, but he nods his head in Erin’s direction, and Holtz turns, looks at her, then back at him.

 

“Right,” she says, slipping back into English. “Um. Yeah. Henry, this is...Erin.”

 

“Hi,” Erin says, bringing her hand up into a quick wave, smiling politely. 

 

“She’s, uh…,” Holtz pauses, lets out a nervous laugh. “She’s my girlfriend.” 

 

“Girlfriend?” Henry repeats, the raise of his eyebrows only barely visible beneath the brim of his hat. “As in…?”

 

“As in...surprise! I date women!” Holtz grins, but her eyebrows are furrowed, and her movements are stiff, and she seems to be waiting in suspense for his reaction. He looks at her, and then at Erin, and then at her again.

 

“Oh,” is all he says. 

 

“Um,” Holtz mumbles. “Yeah. Um. I...Yeah.”

 

“I see,” he says, a frown crossing his face. Erin can feel her heart thumping somewhere in her throat. She’s so used to living in New York City, so used to being in a relationship with a woman in New York City, where they can walk around holding hands, kiss in public, be themselves, and it’s not a big deal. She’s so used to that, she’s not used to being looked at like  _ that _ , like the man at the gas station, like the way this Henry guy is looking at them. But then Henry’s expression changes. His frown turns thoughtful.

 

"So you...don't date men?"

 

"Nope," she shakes her head.

 

"Not at all?" he asks, still looking thoughtful.

 

"Not at all," she confirms. And then he nods.

 

“You know…,” he says. “That’s actually...kind of a relief.”

 

He and Holtz look at each other. She smiles. He smiles. And then they’re both laughing. Erin doesn’t understand what’s happening. 

 

“See?” Holtz exclaims. “I  _ told you  _ that it wasn’t you!”

 

They laugh again. Erin shifts her weight from one foot to another, feeling awkward and mildly uncomfortable. Holtz looks at Erin, and she stops laughing, but is still smiling, lets out a soft sigh, smile faltering slightly.

 

“Um, Erin. This is Henry,” she says gesturing towards him. “He’s...my husband.”


	3. Chapter Three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes. Sorry about dropping a total bomb and then not updating for like, two weeks. That was pretty rude of me!

"Or, well, he  _ was  _ my husband," Holtz continues, but Erin barely even hears her. "I mean. Are we still married? Like, technically?"

 

She feels like she needs to sit down, but there's nowhere to sit other than down on the ground.

 

"I think so. Hard to say," Erin hears Henry saying, but words aren't really registering in her brain at the moment. "Not really a situation that anybody knew how to deal with."

 

"Well...if we  _ are  _ technically still married...then I do apologize, because I have cheated on you with many women."

 

"That's okay," he laughs. "I've cheated on you with many women, too."

 

" _ Henry _ !" Holtz exclaims. "Scandalous!"

 

"Listen, when women find out that your wife ran away and you're not allowed to remarry so long as she's still living...they're willing to do a lot to lift your spirits."

 

"Henry," she says again. " _ Henry _ ! That is... okay. Wow. Up top."

 

She lifts her hand and he laughs as he high-fives her.

 

"You're really not allowed to remarry as long as I'm still alive? Even though...?"

 

"It’s possible that they’d make an exception, considering…. But to be honest with you, Jillian, I've never really wanted to," he says.

 

"Oh."

 

"I'm okay with...you know...the other stuff," he shrugs.

 

"Even though you're breaking about five  _ billion  _ rules?" she asks with a laugh.

 

"Well, I'm also speaking to you right now. And  _ you  _ are  _ shunned _ ."

 

"That's true," she nods. "See,  _ this  _ is why I married you."

 

It's then that Holtz finally glances over at Erin again. And Erin… She's not entirely sure what her expression is, but she knows that it must display every single ounce of horror that she's feeling.

 

"Erin?"

 

She wants to make some sort of remark about how it's nice that she finally remembered her existence, but she can't make her mouth work. She's still trying to make her brain work.

 

_ Married _ . 

 

She's  _ married _ . Was married. Is married. Hard to say. Not really a situation that anybody knew how to deal with. Married. Married.  _ Married _ .

 

"In retrospect, I maybe probably should've mentioned the part about being married earlier..." Holtz says. "I was kind of hoping to avoid it, though. Didn't really expect to run into my husband before we've even made it into town."

 

Erin is finding it hard to breathe. Her girlfriend is married. Was married. Is married. The technicalities aren't exactly important to her right now.

 

"Maybe now would also be a good time to mention that we had a kid...."

 

She feels her heart stop completely. 

 

It stops and then drops right from her chest and into her stomach. 

 

She stares wide-eyed at Holtz, stares at her just in time to see a grin spread over her face, and then she's laughing.  _ Laughing _ .

 

"Oh my god, I'm-- I'm--" she gasps out. "That's still - oh my  _ god--  _ the  _ best joke _ ."

 

"Jillian," Henry frowns, shaking his head. "It was an inappropriate thing to say fifteen years ago. It's still just as inappropriate."

 

"I'm so sorry," she continues to laugh. Erin looks back and forth between them, and she has lost all feeling in her entire body, and she doesn't understand. Doesn't understand anything.

 

"We had a goat," Henry says directly to Erin. "We were given a baby goat as an early wedding gift. Baby goats are called--"

 

"Kids," Erin says. "Yeah. I get it. I get the joke."

 

She glares at Holtz who is still laughing, and she feels her own face grow warm, unwanted and uninvited tears prickling her eyes.

 

"That's not funny," she tells her. She can hear the way her voice shakes, and the smile slides from Holtz's face.

 

"I'm sorry," she says. "I know. I didn't think you'd actually fall for it... I mean,  _ me _ , giving birth to a  _ human child _ ?"

 

"Well, I don't know, Holtz!" Erin exclaims, and yeah, she's angry. She doesn't even care that Holtz's stupid husband is there to see her outburst. "I wouldn't have expected you to be married to a man, either! So now I don't  _ know  _ what to believe! I don't even know who you  _ are  _ right now!"

 

"Yeah, that's fair," she frowns.

 

"Um, should I maybe...go?" Henry asks in a low mumble.

 

"Yeah, maybe," Holtz answers. She looks at Erin for a while and then turns to face Henry again.

 

"It is good to see you," Henry says. "Even after...."

 

"Yeah," she nods. "Um. I'm really sorry. For...everything. I know I kind of fucked up your life in the process of trying to make mine better. And... I'm really sorry, Henry."

 

"I forgive you," he says easily, and then he sighs heavily. "I never really was surprised that you ran away."

 

"You weren't?"

 

"No. I was angry for a while. Heartbroken. But never surprised. You never did belong here, Jillian. You were always different from the rest of us. That's part of the reason why I fell in love with you in the first place."

 

"I'm sorry that I couldn't love you back.”

 

“I’m sorry that you tried.”

 

“I really did care about you, though. You know that, right?"

 

Several seconds of silence pass between them, and then Henry sighs heavily once more.

 

"Take care of yourself, Jillian," he says. And with that, he turns, and Erin and Holtz both watch as he gets back into his buggy and begins to move away. 

 

Erin turns her eyes to Holtz who very slowly turns to face her. Erin is glaring. Her entire body feels hot and her hands are shaking. Holtz looks afraid of her.

 

"You're  _ married _ ?!" she spits out at her.

 

"Okay. Okay. You're upset. I see that. I get that."

 

"You're  _ married _ ! And you! You-- that-- you would  _ joke  _ about--?!"

 

"You're right. I shouldn't have made the goat joke. It was..."

 

"Mean! It was mean!" she yells, and she can feel a few tears falling down her cheeks. She might be overreacting. She considers this. But she doesn't think that she is.

 

"Yeah," Holtz nods. "And uh. I probably  _ should  _ have mentioned the...marriage thing."

 

"Yeah, you think?! You just decided to conveniently leave that part out?!"

 

"I didn't think that it would come up!"

 

"You thought we would just stroll into your town and see your family and that nobody would mention the  _ husband  _ that you're  _ still married to _ ?!"

 

"Wishful thinking?"

 

"And to just  _ drop  _ it on me like that?! You just-- you-- like it's nothing?!"

 

"Well, I mean, to be fair, I'm really not entirely sure of the correct way to introduce your girlfriend to your husband," she says.

 

"Me either, but it's not like that!" she shouts, gesturing wildly.

 

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do."

 

"And you-- you-- you're married!" she yells again because she still hasn't quite processed the information.

 

"Does it help if I tell you that I didn't love him?" she asks hopefully.

 

"No! It doesn't! Because he loved you! And you married him! You still married him!"

 

"Yeah, that's true," she sighs.

 

"I mean, my god, what if, what if this didn't happen?! What if we didn't  _ happen  _ to run into your husband and you managed to keep it from me that you're married?! What if I asked you to marry  _ me _ ?! You would've been like 'nope, sorry, can't, already married'?!"

 

"Is that... something that you were planning on doing sometime soon?" she asks with raised eyebrows.

 

" _ What _ ? No!" Erin shakes her head frantically. "I mean-- not-- maybe-- I mean. Not soon! I haven't-- not-- it's not important! That's beside the point! Stop smiling!"

 

"Sorry," Holtz says, twisting her mouth into a forced straight line.

 

"You just-- it's like I don't even know you at all! I thought I knew you but then you have this whole secret life and--"

 

"Secret  _ past  _ life," she corrects. "Erin, it's my  _ past _ . And I kept it secret because I tried to leave it behind. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. I just... I didn't know how."

 

"Is there anything else I should know?! Any other bombshells for you to drop on me?!"

 

"No. The Amish thing and the married thing... I think that about covers it," she says.

 

"Okay, well....okay," she says, crossing her arms over her chest, scowling still.

 

"Also, um, I know like, it's not important and beside the point, but uh... Amish marriages are done through the church and not the state," she tells her.

 

"What does that mean?" Erin asks.

 

"It means that there's no legal record of my marriage... and um, that I could apply for a marriage license and uh, have no problem obtaining one," she explains with a shrug. "Not that I've...looked that up...recently...in the past year or so...."

 

"Oh," she says. She's trying to keep the scowl in place on her face, but her lips betray her. "Well... okay."

 

She's still upset, but she's done yelling. She keeps her arms crossed and looks down at the ground. Holtz shifts in front of her and she can see the way she twists her hands together.

 

"How old were you?" Erin finally asks. "When you got married?"

 

"Eighteen," Holtz answers.

 

"You were eighteen when you ran away, too."

 

"Yeah," she says. "I ran away two days after the wedding."

 

"Oh," Erin mumbles, and she's already beginning to feel guilty about her outburst. "Only two days?"

 

"Yep."

 

"You had a wedding and everything?"

 

"Oh, yeah. Huge wedding. It was probably very nice. I don't really remember any of it, though. I spent most of my wedding day alternating between states of panic and total dissociation"

 

"You didn't want to get married?" She asks. She knows it's a stupid question.

 

"Of  _ course  _ I didn't want to get married. I got married because that's what... that's what was expected of me, that's what I was supposed to do, that was the... _ next step _ ," she says, and then she pauses, looking down at the ground and letting out a soft sigh. "And Henry was... he was  _ nice _ . He was nice and he liked me and I figured that if I had to be married, then he was the best option. I thought that maybe I could make myself love him....”

 

“You couldn’t,” Erin states. Holtz shakes her head, still looking down at the ground.

 

“And I thought that if I _couldn_ 't make myself love him, then there was something seriously wrong with me. Because, I mean, he was like...the ideal husband, I guess. So I tried. I tried really, really hard.”

 

She kicks at the ground, digging the toe of her boot into the grass and dirt that they are standing on. Erin watches her.

 

“He was my brother’s friend. He was nice and I liked being around him just fine, so when he wanted to date me, I went along with it. And then when he asked me to marry him, I agreed. Because...that’s what you do,” she shrugs. “You date someone and if you like being around them, you marry them. So I said yes and I went through all of the motions and tried to convince myself that I loved him, and then we got married, and then I ran away two days later because I couldn't do it anymore."

 

Erin doesn't know what to say so she says nothing, replaying the new information in her head. Holtz, getting married at eighteen years old because it seemed like the only option. Holtz, on her wedding day, unhappy and panicking. Holtz, making the decision to run away from the life she didn't want.

 

"Also," Holtz adds, "my wedding night  _ really  _ confirmed every suspicion I had about being a lesbian. I mean, like, not that I even knew the  _ word  _ ‘lesbian’ at the time, but...well...you know."

 

"You...," Erin begins, her eyes widening just slightly. "Did you... and him...? Did you have sex with him?!"

 

" _ Nooo _ ," she shakes her head. "But there was...one failed attempt."

 

"What happened?"

 

"As soon as I saw his penis I started crying and wouldn't let him touch me for the rest of the night."

 

Erin stifles a laugh and then shakes her head.

 

"I'm sorry. It's not funny. I shouldn't laugh."

 

"It is kind of funny, actually," Holtz says. "Now, anyways. At the time, it was not funny at all. It was traumatizing."

 

"What did..  what did he do?"

 

"He was actually really sweet about the whole thing," she says. "I think he thought that I just... didn't know what to expect. Which  _ was  _ true. Because uh, yeah, we don't really talk about sex here. The most sexual education we get is by watching the animals on the farm doin' it. And it’s not like we have the media telling us anything so, really, I  _ didn’t  _ know anything about anything."

 

"Wait, really? You didn't know... _ anything _ ? You got married and didn't...know about...?"

 

"Nope," she shakes her head. "I mean, I had an  _ idea _ , but nothing that I was  _ sure  _ about. It's just not brought up. Ever. At all. Nothing about sex or...bodies or…. When I got my first period, I honestly thought that I was dying because nobody ever told me that I was gonna start bleeding out of my vagina. Had  _ no idea _ what was happening. Thought that it was the end.”

 

“Oh my god, you poor thing,” Erin says. “My first period was terrifying and I  _ knew  _ what was happening.”

 

“Yeah. Not a fun time,” she laughs. “I was  _ so  _ in the dark about  _ so  _ many things. We’re just expected to figure things out as we go, and, I don’t know, I’m sure that friends or older siblings who have certain experiences probably share them, but...I didn’t really have any friends and my older siblings were both brothers, so...I didn’t have that. So...wedding night, attempted sex, lots of crying and...hyperventilating and freaking out, um. Snuck off to the library the next day and decided to educate myself. Freaked me out even more.”

 

She’s looking at the ground, her eyes widened just slightly, almost as if she’s remembering exactly how she felt all those years ago, and Erin is hurting for her. She reaches out, takes her hand into her own, and holds onto it lightly. Holtz squeezes, grasping on a little bit tighter, and glances up at her.

 

“I just remember…,” she begins, her voice soft, “being so angry that I didn’t know anything, and being so scared, because...I wasn’t sure if all that was something that I was  _ supposed  _ to  _ want,  _ or if it was just something that I was supposed to put up with, and that’s why nobody ever talked about it, and I was reading about all of the, the  _ technical  _ stuff, and it freaked me out, and then somehow, I ended up just going through romance novels, like, really, really bad ones, and I would just find the sex scenes, and all of them, they kept describing all of these  _ feelings  _ and  _ emotions  _ that I didn’t feel, that I had  _ never  _ felt, and I didn’t feel that way about  _ my husband _ and I didn’t know that that wasn’t normal because nobody ever told me what to expect, we don’t  _ talk  _ about those things, even when he kissed me, I felt  _ nothing,  _ but I had nothing else to compare it to so I didn’t even know that it wasn’t  _ right,  _ but I had married him, I married him and I knew that I was supposed to have babies, and I kept looking through books, trying to find if there was some way to get pregnant without  _ doing that,  _ and then I got freaked out because I didn’t  _ want  _ to be pregnant or have babies, but I was  _ married,  _ I had  _ gotten married _ and that was  _ it.  _ I had already done it and sealed my fate and I was going to have to have sex with my husband and then I would get pregnant and then I would have children, and that was  _ it,  _ that was my  _ life,  _ that was going to be my  _ whole life,  _ and I didn’t  _ want that.  _ I didn’t want it.”

 

Her words speed up so much that by the end, Erin is struggling to keep up with her, and then she stops abruptly, and she’s breathing heavily, and she’s looking away again, but Erin notices the way her eyes seem to shine just a little bit more than normal, notices the way the tip of her nose is suddenly slightly more pink, and she steps closer to her, her free hand reaching up to her cheek, and Holtz squeezes her eyes shut, tilts her face into Erin’s palm, lets out a shaky breath.

 

“That’s what made you leave?” Erin practically whispers. Holtz nods without opening her eyes.

 

“I couldn’t do it anymore,” she says. “I  _ tried.  _ But I couldn’t.... I couldn’t keep trying. I left the next morning before anyone else got up. I left...everything.”

 

“You did the right thing,” Erin tells her. “That life… that wasn’t your life. It wasn’t the life that you were supposed to live.”

 

But Holtz shakes her head, squeezing her eyes even more tightly closed, pushing tears out of the corners of her eyes, wetting her eyelashes, but not traveling any further down her face.

 

“I shouldn’t have married him. I shouldn’t have married him at all. He was nice and I fucked up so much. He could have been happy. He could have found somebody who loved him. But now he can’t even get remarried because I fucked up. I ruined his life.”

 

“He forgave you, though,” she points out.

 

“He shouldn’t have. Not after what I did.”

 

“Maybe...maybe you did make a mistake in marrying him...but if you had stayed...if you stayed here and lived that life, then I think that you would have both been incredibly unhappy. So, what happened...maybe it wasn’t  _ ideal _ , but...I think that it’s better than what could have happened.”

 

Holtz shrugs, but doesn’t open her eyes or say anything.

 

“You didn’t do that -- marry him, everything -- because you were trying to hurt him. You did it because you  _ didn’t know any better.  _ You were trying to be somebody you weren’t because you were scared, and that doesn’t make you a bad person, Holtz. Even if you think you did a bad thing, you’re  _ not  _ a bad person. And he forgave you. He forgave you! Because even he knew that you didn’t belong here! Don’t you think that maybe you can  _ start  _ to forgive yourself?”

 

She shrugs again and finally blinks open her eyes and looks at Erin.

 

“I tried to avoid mentioning him to you because I was trying to avoid remembering...all of that,” she mumbles.

 

“I understand,” Erin nods. “I’m sorry that I got so upset.”

 

“I should have told you.”

 

“It’s okay,” she says. “I mean, it might take a little bit of getting used to...my girlfriend is  _ married.” _

 

“Church marriage, not state marriage,” Holtz reminds her, the corners of her lips twitching upwards just slightly. 

 

“Right,” Erin says.

 

“So you can still ask me to marry you at any time.”

 

“Alright. Good to know,” she laughs, trying to hide her obvious reddening cheeks. Finally, Holtz smiles again. It isn’t a full smile, like the kind that Erin is used to, but it’s something. She sniffles, pulling her hand from Erin’s to wipe at her nose and then at her eyes. 

 

“We should keep going,” she says, looking towards the town in the distance. 

 

“Okay,” Erin nods. And they set off again, not saying very much, Holtz occasionally sniffling beside her as they walk. Erin can’t help but keep looking at her, all of the new information swimming around in her brain. And she can’t help but imagine Holtz if she hadn’t run away…. Married, and with children. Unhappy. It’s hard to imagine. It makes her uncomfortable and sad and she wants to stop, right there, to pull Holtz to her, hold her tightly, just hold her for however long…. But she doesn’t. 

 

They walk, and soon, there are other people around, and they’re staring at Erin, looking at her with questioning eyes, and they whisper to each other and she stares down at the ground, tries to ignore it.

 

“I’m sorry,” Holtz mumbles under her breath to her. “If I’d had more than one of these dresses, I’d have put you in one, too. But...it’s my only one.”

 

“It’s...fine,” Erin replies, keeping her eyes down.

 

They walk further, and then, without warning, Holtz stops. She stops, and she stares towards a house, and Erin stands beside her and looks as well.

 

“Is that it?” she asks. Holtz nods. 

 

“I don’t think I can do this.”

 

“We’re here.”

 

“I know. But…,” she trails off, keeps staring.

 

“You can do it. I’m here with you.”

 

She says nothing. They stand there in silence for a few minutes. Erin is beginning to grow antsy, but she doesn’t want to rush her.

 

“Holtz?”

 

“Yeah…,” she says, and then she turns around. “I’m not gonna do it.”

 

And then she sets off, walking quickly away, and Erin stares at her, her mouth falling open.

 

“Hey! Get back here!” she yells, following her, catching up to her, and grabbing her by the wrist. “What are you doing?!”

 

“Can’t do it!” she exclaims, easily tugging her wrist from Erin’s grasp. “I can’t do it, so I’m not gonna do it, this was a bad idea, we’re going home.”

 

“No! No, we are  _ not,”  _ she says firmly, and grips her tightly by the elbow. Holtz stops and doesn’t struggle or try to break herself free. “We are  _ here,  _ in  _ Ohio _ , and we have walked this far from the car, ran into  _ your husband _ , and we are  _ here,  _ and  _ this  _ is what we came for, so you are going to go up to that door and you are going to knock on it-- or, you know, whatever Amish people do when they’re at somebody’s house, I don’t know--”

 

“They...knock on the door,” Holtz says, laughing softly.

 

“Okay, great, so, yeah, you...you knock on that door. You understand me, Jillian? You are  _ knocking on that door _ . Now. Right now.”

 

She sighs, looking up at her.

 

“See? I told you that I needed you to be here with me.”

 

She takes a few slow steps forward, takes in a deep breath, and then speeds up to a normal pace. Erin follows her and then they’re at the front door.

 

“You ready?” Erin asks her.

 

“Nope,” she shakes her head, bringing her hand up and then down onto the door in a series of quick knocks.

 

They wait.

 

Finally, the door opens slowly, and Erin sees a pair of blue eyes peering out for a second before it opens completely. The first thing that strikes Erin is how similar the woman standing there looks to Holtz. Their faces are practically the same. The second thing that strikes her is how  _ young  _ she looks. She thinks that if she didn’t already know that Holtz was the eldest daughter, then she would assume that this might be an older sister. But it’s unmistakably her mother. And she stares out at them -- not  _ them,  _ but at Holtz -- and she stares, and stares, and stares, and Holtz seems to have lost her voice, seems to be unable to do anything but stare back, her body rigid and still except for the shaking hands at her sides.

 

But then Holtz speaks. Soft and shaky and unsure.

 

“Guder daag, Mama.”

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thank you to [bantermeister](http://bantermeister.tumblr.com/), [lil-peanutt](http://lil-peanutt.tumblr.com/), [mutantcauliflower](http://mutantcauliflower.tumblr.com/), and [falloutboyrocksmysocks](http://falloutboyrocksmysocks.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and [@holtzbuster](https://twitter.com/holtzbuster) on Twitter for allowing me to talk out this idea with them and for assuring me that I wasn't too completely bonkers for it! And can I just say that it's REALLY AWESOME that I can post about needing to talk out an idea with somebody and have five people come help me? That is SO AWESOME. I am really feeling all lovey towards this fandom right now.  
> (also, if you're not following me on tumblr or twitter, I'm @heykaylabeth at literally all the social medias, so...come follow me!)
> 
> Also, like, thanks to my grandparents for taking me to an Amish town when I was seventeen and thus, beginning a nine-years-long-and-counting fascination with the Amish because...well, that's kind of an important thing.
> 
> Title comes from the song [Old Days by Ingrid Michaelson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hDvLgFIuR8) and it's a really beautiful song by a really beautiful lady and I recommend listening to it!
> 
> This story isn't fully written yet, but it is pretty much fully planned, and I thought about waiting until I had the whole thing written before beginning to post it but I was just so excited so? I couldn't wait! Whoops! And YEAH, the LAST THING I NEED is another story to work on, but this isn't gonna be very long, so it SHOULD BE TOTALLY FINE.


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